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P/FtfJ/EATER F01? wan-001x 07 B. ANDREWS AND W. C. AVERILL, JI APPARATUS FOR TREATlNG PETROLEUM.

APPLICATION FILED MAY]. 1918.

1,319,828. I Patented Oct. 28,1919.

i /2 l E FOAM ACE UNITED STATES PATENT oFnroE.

BENJAMIN ANDREWS, 0F HOUSTON, TEXAS, AND WILLARD G, AVERILL, JR, OF

MERAUX, LOUISIANA.

APPARATUS FOR TREATING PETROLEUM,

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Oct. 28, 1919.

Application filed May 7, 1918. Serial N0. 233,039.

J certain new and useful Improvements in Apparatus for Treating Petroleum, of which the following is a disclosure. I

Our invention relates to apparatus for treating comparatively heavy petroleum and otherheavy hydrocarbon oils and their distillates in order to produce therefrom gasolene or other light volatile liquids, and is an improvement on the apparatus described in our pending a lication Serial No. 147,780.

It is now wel l lxnown that heavy hydrocarbon oils may be cracked or converted into lighter hydrocarbon liquids b subducting the oils or vapors thereof, pre erably under pressure, to a high temperature. It is also.

well known that the temperature required for this operation varies to some extent with difl'erent oils, but is always comparatively high, being sometimes of the order of l,000 Fahrenheit. The high temperature required has made it extremely difficult to devise apparatus for practising the process satisfactorily, and the tendency of the oil to deposit carbon when heated has further enhanced the difliculties.

The object of our invention is to improve on the apparatus described in our said application No. 147,780, and to provide eificient and reliable apparatus for converting the heavy oils into lighter oils by heating the oils to the required temperature, whil preferably under pressure. a

The improved apparatus by which we accomplish the objects of our invention is dia-- grammatically illustrated in the single figure of the drawing accompanying and forming a part of this specification. This figure is a vertical section view of our improved a paratus, and our invention will be readi y understood from a description of this apparatus.

Referring to the drawing, the numeral 1 designates a fire-heated furnace provided with a Smokestack 2. The numeral 3 designates a vertically-disposed tube or. container, and this is filled with a liquid which will not distil at the temperature em loyed. It is essential that the material in t e tube or container 3 be one which not only will not boil or distil over at the temperature employed, but one which will not chemically combine with the oil 'being treated;-

Lead and other metals which fuse at low temperatures, are recommended for this purpose. Disposed in the tube 3 there is an inner tube 5, and the lower end of this tube is open and terminates near the bottom of the tube 3. This tube 5"is also provided with one or more openings 6 near the top.

and preferably at the upper level of the liquid in the tube 3. The oil to be treated,

either in the form of a liquid or a vapor, is introduced through a tube 7, a portion of which is disposed in the form of a coil in the Smokestack 2 in order that the oil may be preheated. The coil 3, as shown, extends down through the tube 3 and has its lower end 7? turned up so as to discharge t e preheated oil or oil vapor into the lower end of the tube 5; The tube 3 at its upper end is provided with a cap 7, and in practice this should be mounted so that it can readily be removed so as to give access to the interior of the apparatus. This tube 3 is also provided with an elbow 9 which connects with a conduit 10 extending into a drum 11 which is provided as a convenient receptacle in which any carbon forming during the cracking operation may be deposited. 12 designates a thermometer mounted in' the top of the tube 7 so that the interior temperature in'the apparatus may be easily observed. The hydrocarbon vapors pass from the drum 11 through pipe 14 to any suitable condensing apparatus.

In operating the apparatus described, the tube 3 is filled with a material, such as lead, and the fire in the furnace is started and the heated gases move through the furnace and in contact with the tube 3, following the course indicated by the arrows.

When the apparatus has been brought to the proper temperature, the cock 7" is opened and the hydrocarbon to be treated passes through the tube 7 where'it is preheated, and then down to the bottom of the tube 3 where it esca es in the lower .end of the inner tube 5. I n escaping from under a substantial pressure when sub jected to the molten lead. This pressure can be had by either making the tubes 3 comparatively short and maintaining a .gas or vapor pressure in the entire apparatus, including the drum 11, or preferably by making the tubes 3 of considerable length so that the weight of the liquid in these tubes, although varying from point to point, will provide at least a substantial part of the necessary pressure. We have found tubes approximately ten feet long, containing molten lead, to give satisfactory results with only a few pounds pressure in the drum 11; In this case the pressure, due to the weight of the liquid lead, was over fifty pounds per square inch at the bottom of the tube 5, where the hydrocarbon was introduced.

When the hydrocarbon is discharged from the end 7- of the tube 7, the vapors rise rapidly through the tube 5, carrying the molten lead with them, and escape with the molten lead through the opening 6. At this point the vapors separate from the lead and pass up through the elbow 9 and tube 10 into the settling'drum 11. e have found by actual operation of apparatus of this kind that only a very small quantity of carbon is deposited and substantially all of this is carried up through the tube 10 and deposited in this drum 11 as a fine powder so that it can easily be blown out or removed. The rapid circulation of the molten lead through the tube 5 substantially prevents any accumulation of carbon on the inner walls of this tube, and the apparatus can be run for days at a time without any trouble due to the accumulation of carbon in the apparatus. If any carbon should accumulate, it can be readily removed by taking 0d the cap 8 and cleaning the interior of the tube 5, which is exposed when the cap 8 is removed. We have observed that the trouble heretofore experienced with carbon accumulations has been mainly due to a local overheating. In the improved apparatus described, there can be no local overheating because the heat of the furnace is applied to the tube 3 containing the molten metal, and owing to the rapid circulation of this metal down inthe tube 3 and up in the tube 5, there is at all times maintained an even temperature throughout the tube 5, where the cracking operation is carried on. Even should carbon accumulate on the tube 5 it would not tend to produce local overheating because of the circulation of the molten metal.

The tube 7 is very small and the hydrocarbon passes through it so rapidly that there is no troublesome accumulation of carbon in this tube.- If such accumulation should take place in that portion of the tube which is immersed in the molten metal, this difficulty could be readily overcome by forming that portion of the tube 7 of heatinsulating material or by heat-jacketing that portion of the tube.

While for purposes of illustration we have shown only a single unit consisting of one outer tube 3 and one inner tube 5, it is understood that a large number of these units may be provided in a single furnace and connected, if desired, to a com mon settling drum l1.

' Having now described our invention, what we claim is: e

1. A vertically disposed tubular member, containing molten metal, a cracking tube disposed therein in open communication with said molten metal at its top and bottom, and means for delivering hydrocarbon to be treated into the bottom of said tube;

2. Avertically disposed externally heated tube, containing a molten metal, a second tube disposed in the first and means for passing the hydrocarbon to be treated together with molten metal through said interior tube.

A vertically-disposed externally heated tube, a molten metal, a second tube disposed in the first, means for admitting molten metal and hydrocarbon to be treated into the bottom of said last-named tube and for discharging the hydrocarbon andthe molten metal at the top of said tube.

BENJAMIN ANDREWS. WILLARD C. AVERILL, JR. 

